ShockTillYouDrop.com received word today that Rick Baker, FX maestro behind An American Werewolf in London, has signed on to create the werewolf makeup for Mark Romanek's upcoming The Wolf Man, a remake of the classic Universal horror film. Filming on The Wolf Man begins in December. The movie, starring Benicio Del Toro as Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr's original role) and Anthony Hopkins, has a projected release date of November 14, 2008.

Production company Distant Horizon (Prey) has hired screenwriters Eddie and Chris Borey (Open Grave) to revive Sax Rohmer's pulp villain Fu Manchu for a new film, according to Variety.com. Distant Horizon will be co-producing the as-yet untitled film with Harry Alan Towers, who produced a series of Fu Manchu flicks starring Christopher Lee in the 1960s, and Maria Rohm, who acted in The Vengeance of Fu Manchu and The Blood of Fu Manchu.

The character was last seen in a cameo in Rob Zombie's fake Grindhouse trailer, "Werewolf Women of the SS", portrayed by Nicholas Cage.

Hong Kong director Fruit Chan is attached to helm the English-language remake of Hideo Nakata's Don't Look Up, according to Variety.com. In the new version, backed by Distant Horizon (Prey) and Japan's Action 5, a movie production experiences supernatural weirdness due to an old piece of film that captured a woman's murder. "I loved the original film by Hideo Nakata," Chan said. "And I was happy to take on the remake. For too long I've been labeled as an art-house director. I'm a director." Filming is expected to take place in South Africa and Romania within the next few months.(read more...)

Rob Zombie's Halloween remake hasn't been out a full week, but the director is already talking about the DVD. He confirmed to Fangoria.com that there will be a full-length documentary similar to the 30 Days in Hell feature found on the Devil's Rejects disc. "We shot one the same way," Zombie said.(read more...)

Planet Hollywood's Las Vegas Resort and Casino, in an attempt to reinvent itself as the Tinseltown of Nevada, is hosting a month-long promotional push for Screen Gems' Resident Evil: Extinction, which will culminate in the film's September 20th premiere. Two thirty-foot banners advertising the movie, directed by Russell Mulcahy (Highlander), have been flying outside Planet Hollywood Las Vegas since mid-August. Hotel rooms will receive a channel devoted to promotional material for the film, there will be ticket giveaways and a chance to win a BMW motorcycle.

"Usually, premieres are just premieres, but this is an integrated promotion with a premiere," said Mark Weinstock, Executive VP of Marketing for Screen Gems.

"We like to think we're in the marketing world, so we're fully embracing these movies," said Planet Hollywood CEO Robert Earl. "We're giving it over to the movies."(read more...)

Bloody-Disgusting has posted five new stills from George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead. You can see all of them here (link will open a new window to Bloody-Disgusting.com). Diary of the Dead resets the clock on Romero's Dead series, following a group of filmmakers caught at the beginning of the zombie outbreak. The film makes its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, September 8th.

Genius Products and The Weinstein Company have sent us the full specifications for the two-disc special edition of Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, coming out September 18th, 2007. Death Proof, the second half of the retro double feature Grindhouse, follows a creepy stunt driver whose taste for stalking lovely young ladies gets him into big trouble when he tangles with the wrong gang of badass babes. Their confrontation escalates to an extended mano-a-mano car chase with one of the girls strapped to the hood of a thundering Dodge Challenger.

Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween (read our review) took the record for highest gross over the four-day Labor Day weekend, pulling in an estimated $31 million. The previous record was held by Transporter 2 in 2005 with just $20.1 million. Additionally, Halloween's three-day take of $26.5 million is the largest opening for a horror/suspense-thriller this year, beating 1408 and Disturbia. Halloween, released by The Weinstein Company and MGM, opened on 4,100 screens in 3,472 theaters on Friday, August 31st.

The Unofficial Hammer Films website broke the news that Hammer Films is set to start filming its first feature-length movie since 1976's To the Devil a Daughter. Titled Beyond the Rave, the new film appears to be about vampires in the rave/clubbing subculture. Rick Warden ("Band of Brothers") has been cast in the role of vampire Strigoli. Cameras roll on September 15th. There are indications that the movie will be released as both a full-length film and also broken up into 20 segments for dissemination on the Internet and mobile phones.(read more...)

Anyone dying for a glimpse at the latest installment in the ongoing Saw saga should head over to Yahoo Movies where the teaser trailer has been posted. The trailer clocks in at 53 seconds and doesn't tell you a lot about the film, other than the fact that there will be people writhing in pain and agony.(read more...)